


The Plan

by writeitininkorinblood



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child - Thorne & Rowling
Genre: Gossip, M/M, Rose is a spy in training, Why is Rose down as Rose Weasley and not Rose Granger-Weasley though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-20
Updated: 2017-01-20
Packaged: 2018-09-18 16:34:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9393830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writeitininkorinblood/pseuds/writeitininkorinblood
Summary: Lily eavesdrops. Rose has a plan. Scorpius and Albus are in denial.





	

**Author's Note:**

> More dialogue heavy Cursed Child fics. I need to stop...
> 
> Set just at the end of Cursed Child, in the penultimate scene. I have no idea if there was actually a Ministry meeting but if there wasn't then there should have been. But I have no clue how Rose would actually have gotten there if there was, so please suspend your disbelief.

Lily Luna Potter was not quite such an avid stair listener as her brother, but she was rather good at hallway listening. She hadn’t meant to pry. Breakfast was over and she was on her way back to the common room when she’d rounded a corner to see Scorpius and Albus on the flight of stairs ahead of her. She’d almost called out to them, meaning to say hi; after all, she and James were under strict instructions to be nice to them both, and James was supposed to look out for them. But before Lily had had time to talk, she’d heard Scorpius’ voice. He sounded so shaken and although her mum’s owl had only insisted that _James_ watch out for their brother and his friend, she couldn’t help but get curious. If they were in trouble, _again_ , then maybe she should be keeping an eye on them too. So she hovered behind the corner and listened intently, frowning when she realised Scorpius had asked out Rose. When she heard her own friend’s voice things got more interesting. Was Rose… flirting? With Scorpius? That was new. All she’d ever heard her say about him were complaints. Maybe she’d changed her mind…

Rose started laughing, but it was a kinder laugh than she usually allowed her cousin or his friend and Lily’s frown deepened. What on earth was going on? When Rose walked away from the boys and towards the corridor Lily had commandeered as her spy hideout, Lily grabbed her robes and pulled her into the classroom just beside them.

Not even giving Rose a moment to realise exactly what was going on, Lily scowled at her. She didn’t care if Rose chose to date Scorpius or not, she just wanted to be told about it. They were meant to be friends. Friends talked about things like that.

“You’re not really going to go out with him, are you?” she hissed, keeping her voice down so there was no chance Albus and Scorpius would hear.

“Of course not,” Rose scoffed. “I said no.”  
She was grinning as she leaned back against the wall, satisfied like a cat that had got the cream. Lily shook her head. It was more than that. Something was going on and she wanted to know what.  
“But you were flirting with him,” she said sternly, a technique she’d learnt from her mother. When Rose just shrugged and kept grinning she asked reworded her first question. “So you are going to say yes?”

Rose sighed. Clearly she was going to have to spell this plan out to Lily.  
“No, but I need Albus to think I’m going to say yes,” she said slowly, over-enunciating every word.

She’d been thinking about this plan since the start of fourth year, but after everything she’d seen since the Adventures with Delphi, as she’d taken to calling them in her head, she knew that Albus and Scorpius were in the right place that meant this was most likely to work. Something had changed, just a little. Torture and not existing and near death had clearly been good for the two of them; they had this look in their eyes now. It was subtle but Rose knew exactly how to exploit it. They were both clearly in love with each other and she was going to make them realise it. It would save everyone some painful unresolved sexual tension, and Albus might finally learn to smile on a regular basis.

Blinking, Lily tilted her head in confusion. Why did Albus have a say in who Scorpius was dating?   
“Albus…? I don’t understand…” she mumbled.  Usually Rose’s plans were worrying at best but they at least tended to make sense.

Patting Lily’s shoulder in mock condescension, Rose smirked.  
“Of course you don’t, young one,” she said.  
“I’m only two years younger than you,” Lily huffed, crossing her arms and pouting.  
“And you will learn a lot in those two years,” Rose nodded wisely.

She wasn’t lying but it was a somewhat redundant point in their conversation. Even a child could see that Albus and Scorpius wanted to be together. The only reason Lily couldn’t see it was because admitting that her brother wanted to be in a relationship at all was probably a less than enjoyable activity, so she willingly kept herself in the dark instead.  
“Just tell me what you’re up to,” Lily asked, tired of all of the circumventing. She needed to know if it was a plan she wanted to get behind or if she was going to ignore everything and pretend she had no idea what Rose was up to again so McGonagall couldn’t blame her for anything that went wrong. Plausible deniability.  

“How much have you spoken to Albus about what happened?” Rose asked, trying to see where she had to start her explanation from.

Lily shook her head. Other than what was going around school, she didn’t really know what exactly had happened to her brother. Only that it wasn’t good.  
“Not much. He only talks about it if you ask him specific questions and even then he’s so vague. Mum and Dad told James and me to not really ask much, anyway,” she said. She wasn’t usually one to listen to orders like that but this one felt serious.   
“See, you weren’t invited to that big meeting thing at the Ministry where they talked about everything and asked Scorpius and Albus lots of questions about Delphi and all the time travelling stuff,” Rose said, trying and failing not to boast.

Lily wasn’t having any of it.  
“And neither were you,” she pointed out, crossing her arms and looking less than amused. Rose heard a lot of Ministry gossip but none of it was because she was invited. It helped that her mother was Minister for Magic, but Rose Granger-Weasley was also a spy in the making. Lily had learned all her hallway listening skills from her cousin.  
“True,” Rose allowed. “but I went along with Mum anyway and heard some things.”

She’d heard a lot of things, actually. How Craig died. How Delphi used the Cruciatus Curse on Scorpius. How they’d all watched Voldemort murder Lily and James Potter. The majority of it was nothing she’d ever want to burden Lily Jr. with; no one needed to hear the screams of the past. But there were some parts of the story that seemed more appropriately PG, and Rose was happy to share them if it got Lily on board with her plan.  
“Do they know you’ve been listening to Ministry meetings?” Lily asked, unaware of the trauma that was echoing around Rose’s mind.

Despite what she wasn’t sharing, that had Rose smirking. Her spying attempts, and usual successes, were legendary amongst her friendship circle.  
“In general? Yes. This one specifically? No. But that’s not the point. Albus and Scorpius basically refused to be separated,” she explained, and didn’t that tell people practically everything they needed to know, “but eventually they spoke to Scorpius alone about all the things that happened in the time he saw where Voldemort ruled. Afterwards I heard my mum talking to my dad about it and she reckons that Scorpius was jealous of Delphi.”

Her dad hadn’t been so convinced. There was a lot of talk of ‘nah, Scorpius doesn’t like Albus like that’ and ‘is the kid even gay?’ but Rose was on her mother’s side. The boys were completely in love, they just didn’t know it yet. But the conversation had given Rose the idea for her plan: jealousy.   
“Scorpius jealous of… He never wanted to be Voldemort’s child,” Lily said, not following.

Rose shushed her quickly, looking towards the still-open door of the classroom. Scorpius didn’t need people starting that gossip up again, no matter how annoying he could be. And he definitely didn’t need to overhear the discussion of it coming from two people he thought were his allies if not his friends. No one deserved to be the rumoured child of the Dark Lord, and Delphi’s existence didn’t necessarily limit Voldemort’s offspring to one.  
“No, jealous of Delphi because of _Albus_ ,” Rose corrected confidently.

Lily still didn’t get it.  
“You mean jealous of Albus because of Delphi?” She asked, confused. “I don’t think she actually liked him. From the sounds of it it was just a convenient way to manipulate him.” And even if it wasn’t then Scorpius could hardly still be jealous when it turned out Delphi was literally evil; he would definitely have moved on by now. Lily was sure of it.  
“No, Lily, listen. Scorpius was jealous of Delphi because Albus liked her,” Rose said, spelling it out slowly. Surely Lily had to understand from that.

“And he didn’t want to lose his friend?” she tried to extrapolate, completely lost. “But Delphi’s gone now anyway,” she reasoned.

Rose collapsed into a chair dramatically, putting her face in her hands and groaning.   
“Are you being purposely dense today, Lily Potter? Scorpius is in love with Albus,” she said, as loud as she dared near the open door. She didn’t believe in outing people who weren’t ready to come out and it was possible the rest of Hogwarts was as oblivious as Lily.

After considering it for a long moment, Lily shook her head. It didn’t add up. How could Scorpius possible be in love with Albus? For starters their dads didn’t get on, it would make Christmases a little awkward if they were together. And then there was the fact that Scorpius seemed pretty firmly invested in girls. And one girl in particular.   
“I’m pretty certain he’s in love with you. That’s why he’s been obnoxiously flirting with you since you two met. And why he asked _you_ out,” Lily said pointedly. Trying to one-up Rose on something was always something of a challenge, but Lily was pretty sure she was close to a victory.

Rose was no where near ceding her argument. She may not have been best friends with her cousin for many years, but she had eyes. It didn’t take a personal relationship with either of the boys to work it out.

“He doesn’t know he’s in love with Albus,” she admitted. “But have you seen them together? They are the two gayest ‘straight’ boys I have ever seen. They’re always staring at each other, it’s a miracle they never make eye contact when they do. And they touch each other all the damn time, haven’t you noticed? At breakfast or in the library, Scorpius will always put his hand on Albus’ arm or Albus will put both hands on Scorpius’ shoulders when they talk.”

Her spying skills went beyond Ministry gossip. Not that watching Albus and Scorpius without them noticing was hard considering they were so caught up in each other that it was like they walked around Hogwarts in their own bubble.  
“So they’re close friends,” Lily shrugged. It was behaviour she’d seen from them in the Hogwarts corridors from the moment she’d gotten there. It didn’t mean they were gay. Right…?

Rose sighed. It was clearly time to bring out her prime piece of evidence. If only she’d taken photos of the moment for proof.   
“When they both had a break during all the Ministry questioning I found them sat next to each other on a bench. Scorpius was asleep with his head on your brother’s shoulder and Albus was stroking his hair. When he saw me he dropped his hand so fast you’d think Scorpius was on fire. He just doesn’t want to admit he’s in love with his best friend. So I’m going to make him jealous, and then he’s finally going to admit to Scorpius how he feels and they can get together already. Face it, Lils. You brother is gay and you’re going to have a Malfoy as a brother-in-law.”

Rose just grinned as she finished her point. In her mind it was all going to work out perfectly. Scorpius was going to stop trying to flirt with her, so she’d never have to hear anything about bread from him again. And she’d get to see her dad’s face when he learnt there was going to be a Malfoy married into the family, not to mention her uncle’s. Those were definitely moments she was going to get photos of. And there was always the fact that Albus would be happier, which sounded far better than the 14 years of moping they’d all had thus far.  
“They’re hardly engaged,” Lily scoffed. She didn’t mind, exactly. Scorpius was a huge nerd and he got awfully teased at Hogwarts but that was hardly his fault, and neither was his parentage. If he made Albus happy then that was okay. But even if she admitted that they _might_ be interested in one another, marriage was a big step.  
“Just you wait,” Rose laughed. She was certain that this was all going to work out exactly as she’d planned.


End file.
